Photocopiers, at the present time, generally have one or two paper trays which hold different size sheets of paper for feeding sheets into the copying machine. These trays have to be frequently refilled because their capacity is generally no more than 200 or 250 sheets. The existing trays are designed to fit on a holding mechanism on the photocopier and present a stack of paper sheets to a feed roller of the photocopier. Since the photocopier is designed to receive a paper tray or cassette of a given size, it is not possible to merely use a large depth paper tray to hold a greater number of sheets of paper. This presents a drawback where high volume copying is desired in that frequently copying must be halted to reload paper in the tray.
Where a large capacity paper tray is utilized which does not directly couple to the photocopier as shown in the aforementioned co-pending application, a transfer mechanism must be provided to transfer the paper sheets from a stack to the feed roller of the photocopier.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a new and improved large capacity paper tray for a photocopier, including a sheet separator and a transfer mechanism which accepts a separated sheet from the stack and accurately positions the sheet for acceptance by the feed roll of the copier.